Texas doctors have tweaked an old procedure of combining surgery and chemotherapy with promising results to treat ovarian cancer, which disproportionately affects Latinas. The altered strategy, which involves “assigning a score on the severity of the cancer to guide treatment,” has proven quite effective, and doctors have successfully removed 86% of the disease in treated patients over the last two years, the Wall Street Journal reports. Despite the great success of this new approach, doctors haven’t yet proved this new strategy will extend lives, but they’re confident it will have a great impact. “The idea was to take information that’s already known and implement it into practice so we could immediately have an impact on patient survival,” Alpa Nick, gynecological ...
Cancer survivors and healthcare providers are invited to explore diet, spirituality, and more at the inaugural Women’s Survivorship Summit from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 13, 2015, at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, with support from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Collaborative, a coalition that includes the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Register here for the summit, which will feature free food, speakers, and cancer resources. Dr. Virginia G. Kaklamani, leader of the breast cancer program at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center at the UT Health Science Center, will talk about the clinical and psychological challenges of being a cancer survivor and how to move ahead. Other experts will cover healing foods ...
June is National Fruit and Vegetable month. Doctors recommend an average of 2 cups a day of veggies, but Latinos on average eat less than the national recommendation. How can we change that? Join us along with USDA-Choose My Plate and FoodCorps to come up with ways we can make vegetables more accessible to Latinos, and how grocery stores and cities can also play a role in that process. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat:
DATE: Tuesday, June 02, 2015
TIME: Noon CST (1:00 PM ET)
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludToday
CO-HOSTS: @MyPlate @FoodCorps Be sure to use the hashtag #SaludTues to follow the conversation on Twitter, share your thoughts and ideas. #SaludTues is a weekly Tweetchat about Latino health at 12p CST/1p ET every Tuesday and hosted ...
In the next five years, 40 percent of new households that form will be headed by a Latino. According to Hispanics & Home Ownership: Closing the Gap, a new report by The Demand Institute, more than 4 million Hispanics hope to own a home, but only 1.5 million Hispanics will be financially ready to do so, leaving 2.5 million Latinos without prospects of buying one. Sufficient income and credit as well as a down-payment are among the many obstacles Latinos face in buying a home. “Hispanics were hit especially hard by the financial crisis and housing crash, and the outlook for home ownership is uncertain,” said Louise Keely, president of The Demand Institute. “The home ownership rate among Hispanic households now stands at 44 percent and continues to decline; stagnant ...
Some say the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed in 2010 hasn't been effective, but data from USDA and academics show that most schools across the country are actually serving healthier food and kids are eating it. This is good news for Latino students, who are more likely to eat school-provided lunch than their White peers. Since the Act, school lunches have gotten makeovers across the country. These days, 95% of school districts are serving healthier school lunches. School lunches are not only healthier, but are looking and tasting better than ever in most schools. Yet, some law makers want to roll back these healthy standards. Congress will debate whether to re-authorize the law this year. If you support the new school food standards, the American Heart Association has a ...
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Latinas. But now, thanks to “My Cancer Journey Apps,” available in English and Spanish for iPhone and Android, women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer will have a 24/7 companion providing them with answers and information about their illness. “It has always been our objective that everything we do reaches the highest audience possible. Making our apps available also in Spanish is a step forward in achieving that objective,” John Papandrea, CEO and President of Willowglade Technologies said. Patients can personalize the app according to their treatment, their stage and emotional state. The app based on algorithms provides the patient with new content and relevant information during the treatment process. Users can also ...
Dr. J. Emilio Carrillo has spent his career breaking down healthcare barriers for New York residents. Carrillo, a researcher and clinician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College, infuses a cultural competency approach in the care of individual patients. Now his approach is being honored. Carrillo will be given the American Medical Association Foundation's 2015 Excellence in Medicine Award-Pride in the Profession on June 5, 2015, in Chicago. The award recognizes physicians who exemplify the medical profession's highest values: commitment to service, community involvement, altruism, leadership and dedication to patient care. Carrillo does just that. His strategy uses a patient-based, cross-cultural approach that helps bridge cultural barriers in the care ...
According to a new report by the American College of Sports Medicine, Washington, DC is the fittest city in the country. The report took into account two broad measures of public health: such as prevalence of diabetes and smoking and the average consumption of fruits and vegetables by city residents. They also looked at the access citizens had to bike lanes, public parks and farmer’s markets. Cities with large Hispanic populations fared badly. Phoenix, with a Latino population of more than 40 percent placed 37th and San Antonio, Texas with a population of more than 50 percent Latino placed 47th. "When you take in huge swaths of metro areas, it can hide huge disparities. These are wonderful wake-up calls for communities at the bottom of the list, but they should not be reason ...
The team over at Fly Movement, a Houston based non-profit organization that works to get kids excited about being fit has just released the latest results from their 6-week fitness challenge! After giving out 50 fitness trackers to 3rd grade students at Brookline Elementary, Eric Melchor, founder of Fly Movement, noted that kids were more active. While wearing fitness trackers the students walked an average of over 2.65 miles a day. According to Melchor, the idea behind Fly Movement is simple. Just give kids a fitness tracker and a goal challenge. "I usually tell them about one of my goals," said Melchor. "If you can teach kids at a young age the importance of reaching goals they are going to do better in life." For kids participating in Fly Movement, the goal is to beat ...
